Is the film above a straight shred flick or a 30-minute homage to the entire horror-film genre? It’s kind of cool to just sit back and watch something that’s a good mix of both.
As somebody who regularly wakes up with a handful of new YouTube links in my inbox, it’s a challenge to actually watch each new feature-length project, short film, and edit. It’s not terrible. My 18-year-old self would lose his mind knowing this kind of backlog is how I ended up keeping the lights on as an adult. The point I’m making is there’s a lot of content to keep up with in 2021. And the over-saturation means there’s a flood of quality stuff that falls through the cracks.
This morning I got stuck on this one, though. Honestly, for no particular reason other than it was genuinely entertaining and accomplished the one thing such projects are meant for: making me want to get out and make some turns. Thirty minutes later here we are…
“We knew from the beginning that we wanted to be old people in a rehab center since our last movie was called Betty Ford,” Kevin Backstrom says, explaining the concept behind Relapse.
The ominous cinematic open shows just that, as if this is a horror flick and not a snowboard flick. A nod to The Blair Witch Project opens Sebbe De Buck’s section soon after. Within a minute he stomps a huge road gap. And I think that is the moment I realized I would be sitting in front of my computer for the duration. Ludvig Billtoft has a rad street section two-thirds through the film, mixing up the pace. One minute the film highlights freestyle, the next it’s in the backcountry, the next Billtoft is piecing together a wild downtown segment. There’s boozing and partying in between. The lineup consists of Sebbe De Buck, Tor Lundstrom, Kevin Backstrom, Ulrik Badertscher, Rene Rinnekangas, and Ludvig Billtoft, so there is a genuine mix of styles as far as riding goes. Normally, that kind of variety is tough to pull off and keep some thematic cohesion or even maintain a film’s energy.
“Tor’s mctwist on that one hip jump in Laax was just crazy to see. Pretty much the whole of Luddes season was insane to watch, so impressed and proud of him,” Backstrom says. “We built this crazy gap jump in Riks that Sebbe was down to hit and he first tracked that thing perfectly. No-one else was down to hit that thing before he went.”
Enjoy your next half hour.
